seven years
by thir13enth
Summary: Just as Acnologia destroyed Tenrou Island, and Fairy Tail along with it, Crime Sorciere only began to stand on its own feet. A full seven years passed. And who knows what the hell happened. Drabbles - ranging from angst to crack - centered around Jellal, Ultear, and Meredy. Various shippings.
1. lose

**Seven years is a fucking long time, my friends.**

 **Earlier this morning, I sorta found myself drowning in Crime Sorciere drabble ideas in the years between X784 and X791 that I realized I never thought too hard about since our protagonists had been frozen in time and the entire story sorta conveniently skips over the gap.**

 **So yeah, this story is going to be a bunch of (mostly unrelated) drabbles of events that could have taken place within that time frame. Honestly, this is really just for myself so I don't have a set goal or schedule for this series, but it is what it will be! Thanks for sticking with me thus far, haha!**

 **Enjoy?**

* * *

seven years to **lose**

* * *

When they first broke Jellal out of his impending and imprisoned death, they found him soaked in tears that had never left his eyes.

"She's gone," he said, body crumpled into a ball even smaller than the cage he had been jailed within.

They didn't need him to explain who he had been talking about.

They had seen the entire island collapse in front of their eyes. They had just watched as the king of all dragons made night of the entire day and breathed death onto the Fairies. They had only clutched onto each other even tighter as they avoided the human-turned-dragon's red-eyed gaze and let the ocean current take them further and further away from the calamities, selfishly fearing the loss of their lives.

"Jellal," Ultear said, handing him her right hand. "Let's go."

He didn't take it.

Meredy looked back and forth, well aware that with every second they didn't move, they risked another chance of violent confrontation with the Magic Council.

Jellal would have to be left here if they didn't get a move on.

Even the thought of that was discouraging to Meredy, who was still trying to understand why Ultear wanted to save the man so badly.

While sharing a Sensory Link with her foster mother, she learned that Ultear had many regrets and that Jellal was one of them. But there were things that her Malguilty Magic couldn't access, and when it came to someone as complex as Ultear, even sharing feelings and desires wouldn't tell her anything about Ultear's plans and motivations.

She could only so much as guess.

However what Meredy did know for sure was that she didn't want Ultear's sacrifices to save him to go to waste, and so the younger woman knelt down to her knees to bring herself to his level.

"Please, Jellal," Meredy begged him. "We don't have much time."

He was unresponsive. He didn't care.

There was only one thing that Meredy could think of that would be able to solve this, and she looked back up at Ultear, raising her right wrist, hinting that maybe with the injection of their own aspirations into Jellal, he would be stirred to move on behalf of them.

However, they looked at once more at the hidden suffering on his face and reminded themselves that the Sensory Link would only overwhelm them with his pain.

So Ultear decided to try again.

"We're going to save Erza, Jellal," Ultear said.

In horror, they watched him slowly turn to face them.

"She's still alive, and we're going to save her," Ultear continued, her voice never breaking.

He looked up at both of their eyes, analyzing them to see if he could trust their words.

He hesitantly took Ultear's outreached hand, and while the two women silently breathed a sigh of relief, they wondered which pain would feel worse:

That of losing a loved one, or that of losing the hope of not.

* * *

 **Meh, this drabble turned in a strange direction I didn't expect.**

 **But to note, I think I'm in love with both the idea that Jellal had believed that Erza was dead for seven years** ** _and_** **with the idea that Jellal had believed Erza was alive during the seven years even when everyone else thought otherwise.**

 **…And I might flip between both possibilities as these drabbles come out. :P**

 **Whatcha think?**

 **thir13enth**


	2. alive

**Before I begin, just quickly wanted to throw out that I'm actually really surprised that there's any following of this story at all! This is sorta on the crack end of Fairy Tail and totally unpopular, so I appreciate the support! Love you, my dear readers!**

 **This one's a Meredy-centered character drabble. Sort of a character analysis, if you will.**

* * *

seven years **alive**

* * *

Ever since the loss of her mother and father, Meredy didn't know what it meant to feel.

The world is small and simple, made of cause and effect:

Someone killed her father, and so he died. Someone killed her mother, and so she died.

Someone didn't kill her, and so she is alive.

And as someone that is alive, she has a purpose. She exterminates and annihilates everyone that assigned to her without question, and her only rationale is that she was simply told to do these things.

She produces no emotions of her own, and so her Lost Magic is the most ironic of the Seven Kin of Purgatory.

Even more so than Zoldeo, who occupies the spirit of a celestial animal with his power to manipulate mankind, even more so than Rustyrose, who lives to destroy the magic that sets him apart from the commoners he hated, and even more so than Ultear, who destroys her humanity to the best of her ability in order to regain it all back later.

The very power of her magic is within emotions, and she cannot tap into her own.

Perhaps that is why she is taught Maguilty Magic, because if it were anyone else, they would have already taken over the world.

 **…**

In many ways, she likes her magic. She has never been able to understand irrationality, and because her sensory magic goes both ways, she takes the opportunity to learn about what it means to be human from the people she would soon take the life away from.

Meredy learns the elements of many emotions, but she wonders how emotions can feel so different when they invoke the same sensations. How does something as different as angry share the same heated blush as embarrassment? How does crying constitute for same tears of both happiness and sadness? How do people understand what they are feeling when there is no rational way to analyze the differences?

She asks her peers these questions and they can never give her a straightforward answer.

She figures they do not want her to understand.

So sometimes she tries to reflect emotions back to her victims, to experiment and see if she can recreate the same twisted expressions on the face before her as the one that she had just killed.

She can never do it, however, and Meredy does not understand why she cannot just simply replicate these mundane and simplistic brain behaviors.

She kills her victims before they have a chance to mock her for trying.

She figures no one wants her to understand.

 **…**

Meredy follows Ultear, because following is the only thing she has ever known.

Following allows her to move without thinking for herself, but to still move with a purpose. She can't think for herself. It is too difficult. She chooses to follow and not to choose because she doesn't know how to tap into her own mind.

She doesn't want to.

She is scared of what is created there.

After all, she hears that mental pain is often worse than physical pain.

And Meredy knew very well the many kinds of physical pain there were.

She inflicts them on herself in order to hurt others, and only every now and then she realizes that she hurts herself more.

At times, her victims tease her with mental agony through the Sensory Link that she has bound between the two of them.

She kills them before it takes over her.

 **…**

The first time Meredy thinks she feels is when she sees Ultear driving a knife in her own body.

Up until this point, Ultear was only someone to follow. But Meredy realizes that with Ultear gone, she would have no one to tell her what to do, what to think, what to believe in—

Ultear is more than someone to follow, Ultear is Meredy's purpose in life. Ultear gives Meredy direction and assignment. Without Ultear, Meredy is an empty box without use.

And so Meredy ensures that Ultear will not go. She convinces Ultear to live on.

Then Ultear tells her that she was the one that killed her mother and father.

The world is small and simple, made of cause and effect:

Ultear killed her father, and so he died. Ultear killed her mother, and so she died.

Ultear didn't kill her, and so she is alive.

Meredy does not kill Ultear. She hugs her and tells Ultear that it is okay, because Meredy does not like when Ultear is crying—she would look too much like Meredy's victims.

Meredy wonders if this is what love is.

 **…**

After Grimoire Heart disintegrates, Meredy finds that she has nowhere to be.

She has the entire world open to do what she pleased with it, and she could think of nothing to do.

Perhaps out of habit, or perhaps out of what she thinks love is, Meredy follows Ultear.

She decides for herself to follow Ultear. She decides for herself to follow Jellal.

She decides that she will turn a new page in her book. She decides that she try to feel.

And as her newfound guild atones for the sins they had done in the past, she takes the opportunity to regain the humanity that she had never let herself have. She allows herself to feel freely, and she enjoys the fact that there are things in the world too complex for her to understand.

She believes that her time for wisdom will come.

For right now, she is still learning.

When Jellal and Ultear notice that Meredy's Sensory Link is activated around her own wrist and no one else's, they smile to themselves and don't try to understand.

Meredy doesn't try to explain.

She keeps the pink magic around her wrist to ensure she feels her own emotions when they come.

It's how she knows that she's alive, and how she thanks the world for being so rich.

* * *

 **I'm not really sure where this one went. I think it's always been interesting to see how Meredy has changed so much in personality since we first met her. Anyway, this story certainly ended up longer than I expected, and as short and quip it was relative to my other longer pieces, took two sittings to complete. I sorta knew where I wanted to end but…this is what happened. So…whatcha think?**

 **thir13enth**


	3. too late

**Some Jeltear.**

 **I'm hardcore on the Jerza ship, but I'm surprised that this pairing isn't as popular as it could be, because it's a pretty interesting relationship to write about.**

* * *

seven years **too late**

* * *

Neither of them had planned it.

Not once from the very start did they think that they would end up in each other's arms.

He, the tattoed orphan child that was in love with the light but would never allow himself to leave the shadows, and she, the raven-haired ice heiress that shrouded herself in darkness in the hopes that one day she might find stars in the night sky.

The moment after, they slowly pulled back from each other's lips, looking deep into each other's eyes.

And maybe for a moment, they might have questioned why they had taken so long to realize that they might have enjoyed each other's company—albeit covered in scars of regret and old desires.

But as their imagination started to form a potential future to share, little did they know that the next day, a certain immortal blond girl would give rise to an island that had disappeared seven years ago in the past.

* * *

 **thir13enth**


	4. punishment

**More Jeltear…but more one-sided and angsty.**

* * *

seven years of **punishment**

* * *

Jellal had always been special.

Even among the three of them joined together under their independent guild, under a common purpose, under similar ambitions and hopes and desires for the future, he was special.

And now he was simply sitting by himself, away from the campfire, alone on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the night sky, and he was still special.

He would always be special to her, so it was surprising to her that she knew what he was thinking about it, even before she walked over to the front of him and lifted his face to look at his tear-glazed eyes.

"Ul…" he said, softly, and she didn't berate him for forgetting the extra other syllables in her name.

"You love Erza," she told him, with a strong and confident voice.

His face twisted and he pulled away from her touch, covering his hands with his face. "No," he said.

"You ask yourself this question every day, and you never let yourself answer it truthfully." She said this with the pain and guilt of seeing him every day like this, pondering what was so obvious, and not being able to do anything about it.

"No," he stubbornly said. "I can't."

She wanted to slap the living sense into him. He was so stubborn for all the wrong things, and she knew that the dark unhealthy masochistic mind of his was the reason why he wasn't being honest with himself. He was punishing himself for the sake of punishing himself, telling himself that he was doing this because he had done so much wrong in the past, and that he needed to make up for with the rest of his life. And even as he lay down to die, he wouldn't have made up for all the hurt he had dealt by simply existing.

But she knew that even if he was immortal and spent the rest of eternity trying to fix the future from his past mistakes, he would never reach a point where he felt as though he had completely atoned for his sins.

He was hard on himself for no good reason, and he was chaining himself to a heavy weight, forcing himself to grow stronger from it, when it was really just dragging him down.

"You're not really dark," she reminded him, knowing that this was the sad justification that he had built to keep himself away from the light of his life.

The shadows had only reached him because she had been the one to cast them on him. He had always been on the path of light, and she had just forced him astray.

 _She_ should have been the one punishing herself, but _he_ was punishing himself even more.

"Erza walks the path of light," he said, like he had repeated many times before. "I can only be in her shadows."

How many times would Ultear have to tell Jellal that good and evil, light and dark, day and night were two sides of the same coin? How many times would Ultear have to tell Jellal that he loved Erza, and that he should let himself love her? How many times would Ultear would to make him promise to her that when Erza did come back, the first thing that he would do was tell her that he loved her?

How many times would Ultear have to convince Jellal that he loved Erza when she herself was the one that wanted to hold him in her arms?

"You have to be with Erza," she persuaded him. "It's the only way you'll ever be happy with yourself."

His brown eyes grew irritated. "Why…" he asked her, with gritted teeth. "Why do you keep telling me that I love Erza?"

"Because you _do_ ," she reminded him, a hot ball of grief curling at the back of her throat. "Every day you lie to yourself that you don't, but you _do_ , and your life will never be complete without her!"

"I can't—I can't be with her," he argued, his voice raised. "Stop telling me that I have to be with her!"

He stood up, suddenly, confronting Ultear. His eyes were torn between anger, guilt, regret—but one thing was clear, and that was that he knew that she was right.

"I can't think here," he told her, after a moment once he mollified.

He walked away from her, heading back to the campfire, where Meredy calmly flipped over the twig that she was burning for fun, pretending not to hear the entire exchange.

He walked away from her, but he didn't know that she watched his back with tear-stained eyes and a cracked smile. He didn't know that she was doing the same thing he was—denying herself of love and making sure that she would never be able to have it.

Her punishment would come when Jellal finally admitted to himself that he loved Erza, but until that day, Ultear would never be sure if what she was doing to atone for her sins was enough.

* * *

 **Hm…not sure how happy I am with how this came out. Meh.**

 **thir13enth**


	5. immature

**This accidentally turned into one-sided Jeredy. Oops. I don't even ship it.**

 **But hell, I did it.**

* * *

seven years **immature**

"Make me a last name," she suddenly whispers in his ear.

Jellal looks down at the pink-haired girl, who had made herself comfortable in his lap. She draws imaginary shapes onto his chest with a dainty finger and lets her lips softly brush against his jawline, letting her sweet breath tickle him.

"Why?" he asks her, curtly.

"Well…I don't have one," she simply reminds him, and then frowns, tearing her eyes away from his lips. "Don't you remember?"

"No," he denies, removing his eyes from her gaze and looking up at the sky.

"Right," she says, reaching up for his face and pulling it back down to face her. She sits up on his lap, making sure that they were nose to nose, eye to eye, mouth to mouth facing each other. "So I want you to make me one."

"But…" and the words come slowly to him. "Why are you asking _me_?"

Meredy keeps her pink lip-glossed lips curved in a stiff smile, but she can't help her eyes from darkening. He isn't going to take the bait, and he isn't going to do what she wanted him to.

"I want you to give me a name that you will never forget," she tells him. "Will you do that for me?"

He looks at her with blank and heavy eyes. He looks at her, but he doesn't see her.

She leans forward to kiss him softly on her lips, gives him a taste of the strawberry-flavored gloss that she had put on just for him.

She notices he doesn't close his eyes.

When she pulls back, she could spot the sparkle of her lip gloss lingering on his thin lips. He doesn't taste it with his tongue, but he doesn't wipe it away with his arm either.

Instead, he twirls a lock of her pink hair in his hands, and his chocolate brown eyes are focused only on its color.

"I don't know," he says, finally after a long while. "Nothing comes to mind."

She becomes angry, and she pulls her hair back from his fingers and stands up to get off his lap. She wraps herself in her arms and walks away, but she finds that she can't take more than ten steps away from him.

So she sits down in a clump of grass just ten steps away from him. She pulls her knees into her chest and irritatingly wipes her pink lip gloss from her lips and curses the pink color of her hair.

She is forever immature, and she would never gain the attention of someone that desired a woman.

Pink was for girls. Red was for women.

And she would never be Erza.

* * *

 **Wow, now that I've finished it, this ended up being a tinge bit darker than I expected. Not something I usually would portray in Meredy…anywho…let me know whatcha think...about Jeredy?...about life?...about whatever?**

 **Also, let me know if there's any ficlets that you want me to do a continuation of, or like write another drabble in the same universe as! I sorta want to further explore these worlds I've opened up but I also don't want to open a whole worm of cans either. Most certainly not for readers that don't want to read my word vomit.**

 **thir13enth**


	6. nightmares

**Not going to lie, I thought that this series would have ended a long time ago so I'm really surprised that it's reached this length already. At the same time though, I'm happy it's gotten this far and I wanted to say thank you again to my readers—all of which I didn't expect to be reviewing, favoriting, or following this story!**

 **Anyway, thanks much, my loves. As for this one…I'm still not sure what I was aiming for. Although, I think this might be one of my favorites I've written so far in this batch of ficlets.**

 **There's some Zervis and Jerza if you squint.**

* * *

seven years of **nightmares**

* * *

Zeref came to him in a dream.

The world around him was frozen, like an image in the reflection of black glass. Jellal could not move, and his hands were stuck at his sides, his feet glued to a non-existing floor. His eyes were forced to look forward, and all he could see in front of him were the pitch night eyes of the death-bringing immortal.

"Remember me, Jellal?" the Black Wizard asked him, his thin lips curled up into a smirk.

As the cursed mage stepped toward him, Jellal felt his icy aura tickle his skin. A deep fear dropped into Jellal's stomach, and Jellal felt his heart stop when the shadow of the immortal was upon him.

"I remember you," Zeref purred, taking Jellal's chin in his right hand. He pulled Jellal's head to the right, and the younger man felt Zeref's cold eyes run down his jawline, following a blood vessel to his neck.

Done observing him, Zeref let Jellal's head go, and despite his will to not look at the dark mage again, Jellal found himself gravitating back to Zeref's dark and bottomless eyes.

Zeref leaned forward. "I remember you," he repeated again, softly. "I lived in the deepest recesses of your mind, picking at the evil that you had inside of you—wrath, lust, greed, pride, envy—oh, you had all of those. I waited for the fruit to ripen within you before eating them."

Jellal swallowed, dry, but it was enough to stir his courage. "You were never in my head," he asserted.

"And your fruit tasted so sweet, you know," the immortal continued, never leaving his eyes. "You offered them to me, proudly, and you would give me a tease, but then you would take them away from me. 'Wait until I can join you,' you told me. 'Wait until we can share the fruits of my labor.'"

Jellal shook his head, but found that he couldn't move under Zeref's locked gaze.

The Black Wizard smiled to him, never breaking eye contact as he produced something from his cloak. He held it out in front of him, lips pursing, admiring its rich redness.

"This is one of your fruit, Jellal," Zeref explained, with a silky and husky voice. "You've been saving this one for a long time."

He rose the scarlet apple to Jellal's eyes. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Zeref pressed the apple to his nose and inhaled deeply. "Smells wonderful, doesn't it?"

The immortal kissed its smooth scarlet skin. "It must taste so sweet," he mused, running his lips over the polished surface before opening his mouth.

Jellal tried his hardest not to whimper as he saw Zeref's white teeth graze the scarlet fruit, sharp enough to pierce it all the way through.

He closed his eyes and looked down. "Stop!" he cried out. "Please stop!"

Even with his eyes shut tight, he could hear Zeref's smile.

"You know," Zeref whispered into Jellal's ear. "Maybe the reason why you're punishing yourself from loving her is because you know that my own love was never fulfilled. Or maybe…I wanted you to share the suffering I felt from love."

Jellal hesitantly opened his eyes. He looked at the forbidden fruit that Zeref held in his hand.

"I was never possessed by you," he said, with resolve.

His courage quickly left him as he watched Zeref lick the scarlet apple.

"Are you sure?" Zeref asked him, in a low voice. Then he held the apple out to Jellal. "Then why don't you take a bite?"

To his horror, Jellal suddenly found his mouth watering, and an uncontrollable hunger form at the pit of his stomach. He was disgusted and shocked by his urge to tear away at the fruit's flesh—it felt as if all the suffering in the world, in himself, would end if he could just take one bite…

"No," he said, resisting.

Zeref smiled. "Good," he said. "Then we'll just suffer here together, for eternity."

Jellal watched the Black Wizard tuck the scarlet apple back into his cloak, before looking at Jellal with sharp obsidian eyes and a sadistic smile.

"Until next time, Jellal," Zeref said, and the immortal lifted his chin once more before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Jellal never felt his lips touch him, however.

The thought chilled him enough to consciousness, and when he woke up, he found himself covered in goosebumps.

He showered to rid himself of the nightmare, but the cold water running down his back only reminded him of evil's haunting fingers coming up to choke him at his throat.

* * *

 **I think I tried adding a dash of Zeref/Jellal here, but it might not have been that clear. I've always sorta really been into the evil + seductive motifs. I think that's also why I shipped Siegrain/Jellal avec Erza from the very fucking start.**

 **Also why is Zeref/Jellal not a thing? I guess I don't see too many unique takes on the relationship, but still! Agh, next on my list of non-existing ships to write/explore: Zellal...or maybe Jeref? Yeah probably Jeref.**

 **thir13enth**


	7. ticklish

**To my guest reviewer Le Potato, you're totally right. We need something a little less serious in the middle of all these rather dark drabbles. I'm going to write up your story idea later but for now, here's something a little more lighthearted. :)**

* * *

seven years **ticklish**

* * *

At first, Ultear and Meredy thought Jellal had just been saving himself for Erza.

Meredy was the first to notice that the ex-convict was particularly sensitive about being touched.

While the three of them were off on another adventure, heading to the next city to spy on their next targeted Dark Guild, Meredy had accidentally tripped on a rock along the unpaved trail, and when she yelped and grabbed onto Jellal's arm to save herself from falling, the man had suddenly and almost instinctively snatched his arm back from her, leaving the poor pink-haired girl to fall into the cold canal of water just off the road.

"So much for teamwork," the girl had said, under her breath, fixing her earmuffs back over her head while Jellal repetitively apologized for not only not helping her out, but also actively making sure she fell off the road.

Ultear had only clucked her teeth at the time, but then the week after, she too suffered from Jellal's intolerance to touch. She had asked him to hold her Time of Arc glass ball while she took care of something, and their hands had briefly weaved into each other, resulting in Jellal withdrawing immediately and Ultear handing her precious magical artifact to nothing.

Fortunately, the glass hadn't broken.

"You just don't want _anyone_ touching you, huh?" Ultear had hissed at a sheepish-looking Jellal.

And so the two women of Crime Sorciere concluded that Jellal was under the notion that he wouldn't allow anyone except for Erza to get close to him. Which was believable, given his strong love for her and given he was pretty awkward about everything to begin with.

But what didn't make sense was that over the months that they got to know Jellal better, the more they realized that he didn't seem to particularly care if they caught him lounging around with his shirt off, and that he didn't really mind co-ed bathing in onsens.

 **…**

"Maybe it's just a look-but-don't-touch thing," Meredy remarked to Ultear that night as they were settling into a hostel room one hot summer.

They watched Jellal remove his armor and crack his back.

Ultear rolled her eyes, although admittedly she kept her eyes glued to the ripple of muscles on Jellal's back. "Wouldn't that just increase the chances that he _does_ get touched?" she asked Meredy, under her breath. "It just doesn't make sense."

They watched him set aside his battle gear to the side of the room before he turned around, smiling and approaching them.

"Wanna go get some ice cream?" he asked them, his eyes sparkling uncharacteristically. "I saw a nice place as we were coming into town."

Meredy was caught once Jellal mentioned ice cream. "Yes!" she childishly squealed, taking Ultear's hand. "Let's go, Ultear!"

"Aren't you going to put on a shirt first?" Ultear deadpanned.

The blue-haired man looked at her, utterly confused. "Why?"

Ultear tossed a look to Meredy, who was too distracted by the idea of sweets to understand what the older woman was trying to get at.

It couldn't have been _just_ a save-myself-for-Erza thing.

 **…**

Even just being around Jellal was embarrassing.

Ultear and Meredy made sure to stand off to the side, waiting for Jellal to first get his ice cream before they would go after him. With the number of people ogling him, the two women preferred to stay back and away rather than be associated with the shirtless man.

"Who? Him? Oh no, we don't know who he is."

They watched him avoid conversation with a couple young girls and also slip past a picture from a random gazetteer that had somehow heard the news about new-hottie-on-the-block, all in the name of getting ice cream. It didn't take him too long to get his ice cream either, since he was able to just skip to the front of the line using his charm and attractiveness and before long, he was heading back their way, with a big smile on his face and three ice cream cones in his hand.

"Damn it," Ultear said, grabbing Meredy's hand and urging her to start walking away from the scene.

Jellal caught up with them easily. "I got you ice cream while I was ordering," he explained, handing them two large vanilla cones. "Why didn't you get in line with me?"

Meredy and Ultear looked at each other, deciding not to explain while they discretely looked behind them, seeing people point their way. They picked up their walking speed, hoping to get back to the hostel as soon as possible.

"Don't you have a thing against people touching you?" Ultear asked, pointedly, after taking a bite out of her ice cream. (Meredy had never been able to understand how the woman could just _bite_ her ice cream without getting brain freeze—then again, she was Ur's daughter so maybe being cold wasn't in her genes.)

Jellal turned around to face them, in the middle of an ice cream lick. He hesitated a moment. "What do you mean?"

Ultear rolled her eyes, and Meredy decided to take the brunt of the conversation.

"What she means is: Aren't you trying to save yourself for Erza?" Meredy asked, bluntly.

The mage's face blushed, almost on cue. "Wha—where did this come from?"

Ultear didn't think that Meredy was doing a good job of getting the answer. "What I meant is: You don't like when people touch you, right?"

Jellal's eyebrows furrowed, and he slowly shook his head no.

"Right," Ultear confirmed. "So why are you walking around half-naked like you're _trying_ to get touched?"

"I'm not going to let people touch me," he defended, and then decided to end the conversation, turning back around to refocus on his ice cream.

"I think he's just trying to make Erza jealous," Meredy whispered to Ultear, very loudly on purpose.

"No, no, it's n-nothing," he corrected, turning back around. He sputtered a bit. "It's just…a hot day!"

But then something occurred to Ultear. She had figured it out.

Quickly, she took Meredy's ice cream.

"H-Hey!" Meredy whined.

Ultear hushed her. "Use your Sensory Link on Jellal."

"Why?" Meredy asked, still frowning.

"Don't ask. Just do. I'll give you back your ice cream."

Jellal noticed immediately when a pink and glowing band pulsed on his skin. He immediately turned around, demanding what was going on.

Ultear grabbed Meredy, who wasn't sure what was going on, with both arms.

"You're ticklish, aren't you?" she accused, with narrowed eyes.

Jellal threw his hands up in defense and then wrapped his arms around his body. "Oh god, no, don't do it. No, no, no—"

"I _knew_ it," Ultear cackled, and in her joy of figuring it out, she went ahead and tickled Meredy.

She watched her two comrades peel open in laughter, doing so uncontrollably. Jellal kicked his legs up in the air, rolled around in a ball on the ground, pounded on the ground laughing—he was pretty much ticklish everywhere, Ultear discovered—and so was Meredy.

This tickling stunt garnered the three of them a lot more attention than any of the ex-criminals wanted, and soon after the mages were forced to run away from the media and retreat safely in the privacy of their hostel room, albeit with reporters waiting at the entrance of their hostel to catch when any one of them exited again.

Jellal was very upset with Ultear causing the loss of his sweet treat. At least Ultear was holding Meredy's ice cream before she started tickling the shit out of both of them.

Still red in the face, he turned away from the other two, silently pouting at not being able to finish his ice cream.

"Well, at least now we've figured out that Jellal is ticklish," Ultear said, with a strange pride.

Jellal shrugged it off—so what if they found out he was ticklish? That couldn't have possibly been worth his ice cream.

He didn't realize that this would come back to bite him in the ass until a battle against a fellow Wizard Saint several years later.

* * *

 **Lol, this turned out a bit longer than I expected. Jellal is somewhat OOC, in my opinion, but I like to think there's a casual light and funny (not to mention somewhat awkwardly ignorant) side to him that we don't see in the canon. Anyway, much fun, albeit on the side of out-of-character, haha.**

 **thir13enth**


	8. white hairs

**Le Potato, here's your prompt drabble! Thanks so much for this idea by the way! I** **realize people like a bit of change in the pace of angst and broken romances.**

 **I hope y'all enjoy! (Especially you, Le Potato!)**

* * *

seven years of **white hairs**

* * *

If there was one favorite thing that Meredy loved about Ultear—and there were many things that Meredy loved about Ultear—it was her long black hair.

The time witch possessed the most soft and thick hair, raven-colored tresses that waterfalled from the top of her head to the small of her waist, a sable curtain with luxurious shine. No matter how tough the battle they came out of, not one strand of her perfect straight locks ever fell out of place.

And Meredy absolutely enjoyed combing it at the end of the day.

Ultear was never the type to particularly care about her beauty and never really tried to maintain it in any way—then again, with someone so flawless, why would they even try?—but she didn't complain when younger woman sat down behind her, whipping out a white comb and immediately running the ceramic thing through her hair. Meredy's end-of-the-day hair combing had become somewhat of a ritual at this point, and although the pink-haired adolescent had once met firm opposition to her meticulous combing obsession, the ice heiress now never complained about Meredy's actions.

The sensory mage hummed to herself while streaming Ultear's long locks through her comb, mesmerized by how the fine teeth temporarily made ripples in the woman's hair and adoring how smoothly and easily the comb parsed through the tangles—if there were any.

But suddenly, somewhere in the middle of twirling Ultear's hair around her fingers and discreetly brushing the silky strands over the back of her hands, Meredy gasped.

The older woman immediately knew something was wrong. "What?" and then turned around to face the teenager.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Meredy yelped, scrambling back around Ultear and fingering through the woman's hair desperately. Finally, her finger snagged onto a hair, and she looped it around to Ultear's face to show her. "Look!"

Ultear looked at the hair directly in front of her, her eyes crossing.

"Oh my god! This is a disaster!" she exclaimed suddenly, loud enough to make Jellal—who was lying off to the side of the campfire resting his eyes—sit up, startled.

"What? What happened?!" he asked, getting up to his feet and rushing over to see what his two guildmates were freaking out over.

He bent down as Meredy held it up to him.

"Oh," he sighed, relieved. "It's just a white hair."

"It's _just_ a white hair?!" Ultear retorted. "It's a _white_ hair, Jellal!"

He opened his mouth to say something, but immediately closed it again.

"I'm just 20-something years old and already have the mark of an old woman!" Ultear lamented.

Among those with raven black hair, white hairs were essentially cursed. Ultear was barely past her mid-20s…and it wasn't like she remembered her late mother ever having trouble with the standards signs of aging. Her mother had the most gorgeous hair, and for the longest time, Ultear was proud to have gotten her mother's genes.

"No, no, no," Meredy reassured her. "It's okay! Hold still, let me pluck it out for you!"

Ultear shielded her head from the younger woman's hands. "No—if you take it out, it grows into two!"

"That's just an urban legend!" Meredy argued, going for Ultear's head again.

The raven-haired (save one strand) woman got up, stepping away from her insistent hair groomer. She looked up at the confused male Crime Sorciere member, eyes narrowed. "This is _your_ fault," she accused.

"What?! How is the color of your hair _my_ fault?" Jellal's eyebrows furrowed. If there was one thing that he wouldn't take blame for, it was the pigment of a single strand on his guildmate's head.

"You've been worrying me too much with your brave no-Ultear-no-Meredy-get-back-I-can-do-it-myself fights!" she explained, deepening her voice and imitating his voice. "Now look at what you've done!"

"Ultear," he said. "It's _fine_ —no one is going to notice. Not everyone is going through your hair every day like Meredy."

"No, you don't understand," Ultear whined, pouting and clutching her head. "Once you get white hairs, you're done! You can't ever go back from having white hair!"

"I swear it's fine," Jellal repeated. "And if you keep worrying about it even more, you're going to get more white hairs, aren't you?"

"Well if you didn't make me worried in the first place, I would never gotten white hairs from the very start!" Ultear replied, pointedly, jabbing a finger at his chest.

"J-Jellal!" Meredy suddenly gasped, interrupting their fight. She pointed at his head, her other hand covering her open mouth. "I saw it! Y-you have white hairs too!"

The blue-haired man suddenly blinked. "What?"

Meredy hopped over to Jellal, grabbing his head and shuffling through it with her fingers. "Here!" she exclaimed, holding the spot on his head and then walking his head—and the rest of his body following—over to show Ultear.

Ultear put her head into her hands and sat on the ground. "We're doomed," she declared upon confirming that Jellal had not just one strand of white hair, but actually _two_.

"I-I'm sure it's fine—this happens when you get older, right?" But even Jellal's voice held a bit of doubt. "It's bound to happen anyway."

"Well what do you think people are going to think when they see that shiny white hair on top of your head when you're not even thirty or forty years old yet?" Ultear asked him. "I'm not going to be able to date any guy without them questioning how old I _actually_ am! And what do you think _Erza_ would think?"

"E-Erza?" he stuttered.

"Yeah, what if she doesn't like older men?"

"You….You really think Erza wouldn't like it?"

In all of her life, Meredy didn't ever think she had ever seen Jellal this concerned.

"Well I don't know—but if what if the next time she sees you, your hair's gone completely white?" Ultear asked, injecting the image into the man's imagination.

There was a short moment of silence.

"W-We have to do something about this," he suddenly declared. "Where's the nearest place that they sell hair dye?"

"I'm sure we can find some in Clover Town," Meredy suggested.

"Let's go," Jellal said, throwing up his hood over his head—Meredy wasn't sure if that was to protect his identity or to cover his newly found white hair—and beginning to walk off.

Ultear didn't waste any time either. If anything, using her Lost Magic taught her how terrible the passage of time could be to the human body. So Meredy was thus left picking up their travel bags, chasing after them as her two older guildmates walked fast in the direction of the nearby town.

To Jellal's dismay however, the three of them would later find that it was actually quite difficult to find the blue dye for his exact shade of hair.

And unfortunately he couldn't worry about it—otherwise he would _really_ need it.

* * *

 **Well Le Potato, hopefully I've done your idea some justice! Let me know what you think!**

 **thir13enth**


	9. young

**Sorta light, sorta serious. (Oh my, a brief digress back into my angsty ways.)**

 **An idea that came up as I was writing about youth and beauty in the last chapter.**

* * *

seven years **young**

* * *

"What's that?" Ultear asked Meredy, sniffing at the cream that the younger woman had just squirted into her hand.

"Pure White facial cream!" replied the pink-haired Crime Sorciere member. "It's one of Heart Kreuz's new beauty products. They just released these last week!"

Meredy hummed with delight as she rubbed the moisturizer between her palms and then applied them to her cheeks. She massaged them into her face, rolling around her supple skin under her fingers with a big smile on her face. Once done with the routine, she handled the tube to Ultear.

"Here, use some yourself!" she suggested. "This will keep you looking really young!"

The raven-haired woman squinted at the text on the tube before passing it back to her companion. "No, thanks," she declared, not wanting to give into the latest trends. She wasn't going to fall prey to the mass industries that made billions marketing false beauty. "I'll be fine."

"Come on, Ultear!" Meredy whined, attempting to shove the cream back in Ultear's direction.

"I'll celebrate my youth naturally while I have it," the woman stubbornly said, holding her hands up to push the product away.

But what Ultear doesn't realize is that she won't have her youth for long.

* * *

 **Oh, Ultear. I hope Fairy Tail does you some justice at the end—at least some reminder of your sacrifices. Although I admit that you were left with a nice conclusion after the Grand Magic Games.**

 **thir13enth**


	10. heartbeat

**Thank you again my wonderful readers and reviewers! You are really making these drabbles worth writing! I'm so happy that you are willing to read the nonsense that comes out of my head!**

* * *

seven years in a **heartbeat**

* * *

The sound of her heartbeat was unmistakable.

And he heard it, his heart suddenly cracked open its icy shell and started to beat in rhythm.

He collapsed, falling suddenly to the ground, and when Meredy and Ultear immediately helped him back up, worriedly asking him what had happened.

"Nothing," he said, but there was a big smile on his face that the two women could not explain.

It had been seven long years since he had heard her heart's sweet melody and sensed her warm presence. He had always had this inexplicable connection with her—one that sometimes made him think he was insane. After all, there was no way that he could sense what Erza was thinking or doing when she was thousands of miles away from him.

Seven years ago, the feeling had snapped, and suddenly he couldn't feel her anymore. At first, Jellal was devastated, sure that this meant that Erza was gone. He had heard news about the destruction of Tenrou Island and the loss of some of Fairy Tail's best mages, and he had assumed that Erza died.

After he mourned her death, he refocused his energy on destructing Dark Guilds in her name—for she was the one that had kept him within the light, even if he was on the periphery. He never mentioned it to his other two comrades, but the memories he had of her gave him strength.

He didn't remember very much of her—he only hung onto her because of the brilliant color of her scarlet hair.

But as more days without hearing her heart passed, he began to remember more and more about her—all the reasons why she made him smile, all the moments that he had once cherished with her, all the quirks that made Erza who she was.

He also began to remember all the times he had her cry, all the times he hurt her, all the times she looked up at him with anger and frustration but hadn't given up on him.

Every day, he seemed to unlock a new memory, and he would stitch it into his mind, add it to his mental collection of Erza, one that he would tap into to review every night while staring at the campfire in the quiet company of his guildmates.

These memories that came back to him was how he knew—at the very inside of his gut—that she was _somehow_ still alive. He couldn't sense her anymore, but she was there—somewhere—and even while everyone continued to hope that the lost Fairy Tail members would be found, Jellal _knew_ that the Fairy Tail members were still there.

Seven years later—after all his memories came back and he was certain that there were no unremembered gaps in his past—he heard the sound of her heart.

And it was as if they had never lost beat.

* * *

 **Hmm... this drabble started to branch out into at least three different trajectories as I was writing it, but fortunately, I think I chose the one I'm most happy about. :) Anyway, comments and messages much appreciated, and I'm always down for any requests!**

 **thir13enth**


	11. older

**Agh! Can you believe it? We're already past 10 drabbles into the _seven years_ series! And of course, this is due to your support! So thank you! Your reviews are so endearing. They bring literal smiles to my face. Happy days for me.**

 **And Le Potato, I'll gladly accept your request! Give me another installment to write that one. :P**

 **For now, haha, sorry. I've been riding the Jerza ship for a number of years now, so here's of course—another Jerza leaning one! Also it's angsty…because that's what I write when left to my own devices.**

* * *

seven years **older**

* * *

When he took off his blue hood to reveal who he was and fully met her eyes, he was surprised to see that she had not changed one single bit.

Seven years ago, he had torn himself away from staring at her, turning his head sharply to face the empty dark carriage and closing his eyes while he was forced to walk forward to his inevitable imprisonment.

He had closed his eyes and burned her into his mind, hoping that his weak and forgetful mind would at least not forget _her_.

Her, with hazelnut brown eyes—warm and nurturing, but like bittersweet dark chocolate that had never witnessed the heat of the sun, they were sharp and determined around the edges and still broke with a crisp snap. Her eyes paved a path into everything in front of her, making way for only her ambitions and dreams, hopes for making the world a just place for the sake of her friends—both fallen and still falling.

Her, with fair maiden skin—soft and supple, but like a polished stone lying at the edges of the seashore, it showed signs of wear from constant pressures and tides in life. Her skin was perfect and pristine, and even all the discolored scars that she always tucked under a sleeve were smooth to the touch. He imagined if he closed his eyes and ran his fingers along her skin, he would never be able to tell the difference between her past wounds and armored skin.

Her, with pretty pink lips—full and lush, but like a porcelain tea kettle on a stove, the most hot-blooded and inspirational words would pour like water from them. No one would ever guess it from her glossy and unchapped lips but she had shouted more than her fair share of death threats to protect the ones that she loved. Behind a gentle smile, she covered up more pain and loss than she would ever admit in a whisper to the ear of a confidant.

And that precious scarlet hair. The beautiful color that he had thought he would never forget. It burned like the suppressed desire he quarantined in his heart, the build-up of smoke occasionally smarting his eyes and bringing hot tears to his cheeks.

He'd never admit that she was the furnace that kept him running, when the rest of his body was completely exhausted. He would never tell her that the only reason why he was living was because many years ago she had told him to not die. In his dreams, he'd chase after her and reach out to twirl a strand of her flaming scarlet locks in his hand, hoping that her hair would tangle and that she would be stuck with him forever with this red string of fate around his finger.

But he knew better—he would let the silky hair pass through his fingers and let her move forward without him tying her back down. She would walk the path of light, blossom under the smile of the sun.

He wouldn't dare to even follow her. He wasn't good enough to even try to be her shadow.

Yet here he was, standing in front of her. So when he took off his blue hood to reveal who he was and fully met her eyes, he was surprised to see that she had not changed one single bit.

She was still as young as he remembered, and he had aged seven years more years, now carrying a hard flint in his jaded eyes, now possessing a voice raspy with loss and pain, now unable to erase the mistakes from his past—ones that he finally remembered.

He saw her recognize him, her lips forming into a small O.

But as quickly as her eyes flashed recognition of him, they just as quickly steeled at the sight of him—older but not wiser, healthy but not fit, aged but not mature, breathing but not the least bit alive—

He wondered if the seven years that differed between them would forever leave them apart.

It was probably better for her that way.

* * *

 **Blahhhh. Word vomit. I'm fairly certain some of those sentences don't make shit sense.**

 **As a side note, the first time I wrote the last sentence, I wrote "better for _them_ " but then I thought about it for a moment and changed it to "better for _her_ " because I thought that thinking about what was better for Erza was probably more like Jellal than thinking about himself as well. **

**Anyway, that was a random writing-related note that I thought I'd share. As always, I will ask for you to share your thoughts and ideas with me! See ya next time!**

 **thir13enth**


	12. friends

**I can't believe how emotional I'm getting writing this T_T. Just recalling when I posted the last chapter _older_ and then going to work out and then coming back and seeing reviews on the story. I'm getting so teary - you can't imagine how happy and appreciated I felt. (Given I also had successfully completed a really hard workout but yes, you have the power to make me cry happy fountains of joy through reviews.)**

 **It doesn't mean much to you behind the screen, but I'm really really grateful and happy. :') Thank you all for supporting this story and encouraging me to continue writing even though it has nothing to do with my intended career.**

 **Anyway—onwards! This story hasn't been updated in the longest time, and I have plenty of potential headcanons to share.**

* * *

seven years as **friends**

* * *

"Do you ever miss him?" Jellal asked suddenly.

Ultear felt her stomach drop and she hugged her knees. She hesitated for an eternity, or at least a moment that even she, the Time Witch, was unfamiliar with.

She knew precisely who he was talking about, and it upset her even more to realize that he had known that she would have been able to figure it out.

"Yes," she replied, carefully yet casually, making sure to not let the ultramarine read her face behind a curtain of raven black hair. "We did everything together. We planned the Tower of Heaven. We conspired in the Magic Council. We committed many crimes together."

She felt him shuffle uncomfortably, and so she stopped listing the very items she knew the man was still attempting to resolve in his head.

"We did what we thought was right at the time."

A dark silence lingered above them. She could feel him suffering under a self-imposed mental weight on his broad shoulders and she was almost about to offer him a wise lesson about accepting a horrid past and grabbing hold of a brighter future—but then she remembered it took her almost accepting death to be able to get to the point where she was able to accept life.

It hurt her that she was the one that spun his life completely around, and yet, he was the one that was still beating himself up about what he had done and reopening all the scars.

Then again, he was still younger than her, and maybe he hadn't fully realized that the light and dark came hand in hand on the same coin and that even then it was more difficult to tell which side of the coin was which.

She hoped to pass that wisdom to him soon—so that he could rid his mind of the monsters in his head.

"Was he your friend?" he asked her.

It was a question she didn't expect, but it wasn't one that she couldn't answer.

"Yes," she replied.

She wasn't sure if the small and tense smile that crept up on her lips was right for her to have.

Tainted and terrible as her past was, she still remembered that the first time someone else asked her how her day had gone—and actually cared enough to wait to hear her answer—was in this same past.

"Yes," she repeated. "He was my best friend. He knew everything about me, and he knew me better than I knew myself."

He suddenly placed his hands over his face, leaning forward in his sitting position and resting his elbows on his knees.

"I don't remember anything," he admitted.

She looked at him through a side glance, her thin eyebrows slightly furrowing with a deep concern.

"You aren't him," she reminded him. "You weren't him. You're completely different from him."

She said this, but even she wasn't completely sure she bought into her own words. She just hoped that at least he did.

"Do you hate me then?" he continued. "Because he's gone and I'm here?"

She couldn't help but get a little angry at what he was suggesting, or even what he _might_ have been suggesting.

"Of course not," she replied, sternly.

He sat quietly for another minute.

She tried to pass some comforting thoughts in his direction. Most of these thoughts were wordless and were understood better in silence.

"Am I your friend?" he asked suddenly.

This was also a question she didn't expect, but it wasn't one that she couldn't answer.

"Yes," she said, confidently. "You're my best friend."

* * *

 **Hmmm…didn't expect that to happen honestly, xD. And actually I want to explore this Ultear and Jellal's relationship a lot more—especially from Ultear's end. I don't know if I did it enough justice in this piece…**

 **Well anyway, much love, and let me know what you think!**

 **thir13enth**


	13. grey

**notes:** Some Jeltear? I don't know…I've been trying to execute this drabble for about three months (aka avoiding it) but I think I'm lacking the skill to decently put it together. Incidentally I've also been distracted with silly other projects. I need to get my act together.

* * *

seven years of **grey**

* * *

They don't know how started but they know it has to end.

"I'm sorry," he suddenly says. He breaks away from this kiss, the one they fell into.

She touches her lips discretely, as if she isn't sure that the moment that had come between them actually happened. Is it all a dream?

And if so, _whose_ dream?

"What are you apologizing for?"

"This wasn't the way it was supposed to be," he says. He discretely wipes his mouth, but he finds he can't erase the taste of her bittersweet tongue.

"No—I should have known better," she replies.

They don't know why this is wrong, but they know that it shouldn't be. Too much history, too many open wounds, too many broken scabs, too much heartache, and timelines of destroyed futures to fix.

"No," he says. "This isn't about the kiss."

She just looks at him, and there's a moment she sees her reflection in his eyes—a brief second where she thinks that despite their touching lips, their grazing skin, their whispered secrets, it will all be okay in the end as long as he is there in hell with her.

"This is about what had to come before it," he continues.

She doesn't say a word, but she feels his every syllable tug at her chest.

Since when did she was his puppet, her self-worth swinging on the pendulum of his lips?

"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I never meant to fall in love."

His words don't change the potential. She already knows where their relationship would be headed if it were at all to be had. She's invulnerable to the messes of whatever is going to come because she's already decided that she'd wholeheartedly take his heavy package of sin and fall fall fall after him.

But in his eyes, she can see a new deeper, darker, growing realization that darkens the rims of his irises. He used to see her in black and white but now she sees that she's just grey. A dark dark grey that he is trying hard to ignore and to blend into the shadows of his regrets.

And it hurts so much because all she wants is to be seen for more than just her color.

* * *

 **notes:** Literally I don't know what just happened. Make what you will of it. Throw the tomatoes.

 **thir13enth**


End file.
